How Domain Name Works?
What is a domain name?
A domain is the name of your website. Before you can create a website, you will need a domain.
A domain name is not something physical that you can touch or see; it is merely a string of characters that give your website an identity (yes, a name, like human and businesses). Now, here are some quick examples: Google.com is a domain name; so are Alexa.com, Linux.org, eLearningEuropa.info, as well as Yahoo.co.uk.
To have your own domain, you will need to register your domain with a domain registrar.
Top Level Domains (TLDs)
Back to our examples.
Alexa.com, Linux.org, eLearningEuropa.info, and Yahoo.co.uk – these domains end with a different ‘extension’, namely: .com, .org, .info, .co.uk.
We call this “extension” as top level domain (shortform: TLD).
Examples of other TLD include .uk, .ws, .co.jp, .com.sg, .tv, .edu, .co, .com.my, and .mobi. While most of these TLDs are open for public’s registration, there are strict regulations on certain domain registration. For example the registration of country code top level domains (like .co.uk for United Kingdom) are restricted for the citizens of the corresponding country; and the activities with such domains website are ruled by local regulations and cyber laws.
Certain extensions of these TLDs are used to describe the ‘characteristics’ of the website – like .biz for businesses, .edu for education (schools, universities, colleagues, etc), .org for public organization, and country code top level domain names are for locations.
Country code top level domain
The full list of country code top-level domain (ccTLD) extensions are (in alphabet order):
.ac .ad .ae .af .ag .ai .al .am .an .ao .aq .ar .as .at .au .aw .ax .az .ba .bb .bd .be .bf .bg .bh .bi .bj .bm .bn .bo .br .bs .bt .bw .by .bz .ca .cc .cd .cf .cg .ch .ci .ck .cl .cm .cn .co .cr .cu .cv .cx .cy .cz .de .dj .dk .dm .do .dz .ec .ee .eg .er .es .et .eu .fi .fj .fk .fm .fo .fr .ga .gd .ge .gf .gg .gh .gi .gl .gm .gn .gp .gq .gr .gs .gt .gu .gw .gy .hk .hm .hn .hr .ht .hu .id .ie .il .im .in .io .iq .ir .is .it .je .jm .jo .jp .ke .kg .kh .ki .km .kn .kp .kr .kw .ky .kz .la .lb .lc .li .lk .lr .ls .lt .lu .lv .ly .ma .mc .md .me .mg .mh .mk .ml .mm .mn .mo .mp .mq .mr .ms .mt .mu .mv .mw .mx .my .mz .na .nc .ne .nf .ng .ni .nl .no .np .nr .nu .nz . om .pa .pe .pf .pg .ph .pk .pl .pn .pr .ps .pt .pw .py .qa .re .ro .rs .ru .rw .sa .sb .sc .sd .se .sg .sh .si .sk .sl .sm .sn .sr .st .sv .sy .sz .tc .td .tf .tg .th .tj .tk .tl .tm .tn .to .tr .tt .tv .tw .tz .ua .ug .uk .us .uy .uz .va .vc .ve .vg .vi .vn .vu .wf .ws .ye .za .zm .zw
And that’s not all. We now have more than 1,000+ generic TLDs (gTLD) opened to public, including .BAR, .BARCELONA, .BUILD, .FOREX, .CLUB, .COLLEGE, .REST, .WEBSITE, .WIEN, .XYZ, and so on.
Domain vs sub-domain
Take mail.yahoo.com for example – yahoo.com is the domain, mail.yahoo.com in this case, is the sub domain.
A domain must be unique (for example there can only be one single Yahoo.com) and must be registered with a domain registrar (ie.joudiSoft); while for sub domains, users can freely add it on top of the existing domain as long as their web host provide the service. Some would say sub-domains are the ‘third level’ domains in the sense that they are simply “sub folders” under the domain root directory, normally used to organize your website content in different languages or different categories.
However, this is not the case to many including the search engines – it is known fact that the search engines (namely, Google) treat sub domain as a different domain independent from the primary domain.
